He’s the lacrosse version of Tino Martinez replacing Don Mattingly, or Carl Yastrzemski replacing Ted Williams. When sophomore midfielder Charlie Keinath walked into training camp this fall, all he was asked to do was fill the shoes of Pete Vlahakis, the greatest face-off man Fairfield has ever had and a player that Ted Spencer, head men’s lacrosse coach says is “one of the best in the world” at his position.
While the Stags sit pretty at 8-2, riding a six-game winning streak into Sunday’s showdown with league rival Notre Dame, Keinath hasn’t just filled Vlahakis’ shoes, he has run in them full speed ahead.
“He does a lot of things with the ball that Pete couldn’t do,” said Spencer. “Pete would sometimes just get the ball and get rid of it. Charlie is more athletic.”
At week’s end, Keinath was ranked 16th in the nation with a .585 faceoff percentage. Team co-captain Tom Werney ’05 said such a statisitc is enormously underappreciated by those not familiar with the game.
“He had a lot to look up to, and he rose to the occasion,” said Werney, who along with Vlahakis was one of the brightest lacrosse stars at Fairfield before re-injuring his knee early in the season.
“Everyone on the team knows how crucial he’s been,” he added.
As a senior at St. Anthony’s, Keinath led his team to the Long Island Catholic League championship, scoring 25 goals and dishing out 47 assists. More importantly he utterly dominated opponents in the face-off circle, winning nearly every single time en route to winning 90 percent over his four year career.
The limited struggles that Keinath encountered at St. Anthony’s helped the Stags’ unexpected success story this season.
As Keinath explained, his nemesis in high school was Delbartin Academy’s John Soden, who now plays for national powerhouse Hobart, ranked No. 10 in the nation on April 2, when Keinath and the up-start Stags came to town.
En route to an 11-8 upset that would vault the Stags into the top 20 in last week’s poll Keinath got a piece of sweet revenge, winning seven out of the nine draws against his former nemesis.
“I think I’ve played a pretty big role [in the team’s success],” he said. “Face-offs really determine the pace of the game.”
Keinath is a business major who is first looking for some kind of “real job” when he graduates in 2007. But he says playing professional lacrosse, as Vlahakis now does in Major League Lacrosse (MLL), has always been in the back of his mind.
In fact, in Vlahakis, the fourth leading draw-man in the nation last year, Keinath knows of one pro that he can go head to head with.
“Last year in practice,” he explained, “I probably won about 50 percent of the face-offs.”
“When you have training ground like that, it sets the table for success,” said Spencer.
“Him taking the back seat to Pete last year gave him a lot of motivation. He was pumped up to take over that responsibility.”
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